Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a drying device and a drying system.
Description of the Related Art
A printing system is known which includes: a printing device for printing images on a rolled sheet; a post-processing device for winding up the rolled sheet having a printed image thereon; and a drying device provided between the printing device and the post-processing device, for enhancing the fixation strength of the image (e.g., ink) on the sheet. Such a drying device for drying a recording medium to which ink or a pretreatment liquid is applied is generally equipped with a heating roller containing a heat source (e.g., halogen lamp). The heating roller of the drying device is preferably variable in heating width, to effectively dry variety of recording media varied in properties such as width, specific heat, and thermal conductivity.
A typical heating roller contains multiple heat sources having different heating areas. Which heat source to generate heat is selected based on the width of a recording medium to be dried by the drying device. Each heat source has a controller that controls input power of the heat source. For example, a heating roller for use in fixing devices generally contains 4 to 5 heat sources.
On the other hand, a drying device which includes multiple heating rollers further includes the corresponding amount of controllers, thus making the control and configuration of the drying device more complicated. For example, when the number of heating rollers is 6, about 30 controllers are needed.